Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, is a cutting survey made by Gallup.

Thanks to saleemkhan , I get a pointer to some interesting facts. This is a wake-up call to the west and to all the world.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, U.S. public officials seemed to have no idea whether or not many Muslims supported the bombings. This troubled Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton, who felt that "no one in Washington had any idea what 1.3 billion Muslims were thinking, and yet we were working on intricate strategies that were going to change the world for all time." Clifton commissioned his company to undertake the enormous job. [ source ]

The result is Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, based on six years of research and more than 50,000 interviews representing 1.3 billion Muslims who reside in more than 35 nations that are predominantly Muslim or have sizable Muslim populations. Representing more than 90% of the world's Muslim community, it makes this poll the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind.

What the data reveal and the authors illuminate may surprise you:

Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable.

Large majorities of Muslims would guarantee free speech if it were up to them to write a new constitution AND they say religious leaders should have no direct role in drafting that constitution.

Muslims around the world say that what they LEAST admire about the West is its perceived moral decay and breakdown of traditional values -- the same answers that Americans themselves give when asked this question.

When asked about their dreams for the future, Muslims say they want better jobs and security, not conflict and violence.

Muslims say the most important thing Westerners can do to improve relations with their societies is to change their negative views toward Muslims and respect Islam.

What is amazing is that why are they doing this for Islam and religion in general ? Gallop could do better if they did the opposite , Polled all countries (193 in all) and asked them what they think of America now. Are the Americans predatory in nature , in terms of commerce, policy and such ?? I think the value prop there would be an another wake up call for the Americans themselves !!!

I really like this idea of aggregation of Twits during an event. If you use #aa08 in your twit, yeah thats a microformat, your twit entry gets piped into a wordpress blog

Now one can see real time chatter across a single specific social media app being aggregated. Regadless, if you follow the person or not !! I wish they had also grabbed flicker URL and post them too, based on Tags like "oscar08" or something like that.

More important, is the fact that "collective streams" are now becoming a big part of today's world. People watch the Oscars, interact with one another and a whole tapestry of online civilization is formed around an event.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

I love watching the political debate's on CNN and at the same time I also like chat on twitter.. here's some nice comments as it happens style :)-

zik Wow! Take a look at the legislative records of Clinton and Obama. Get ready to be surprised. http://snurl.com/203hnLeatrice @peterdawson EXACTLY. We can just vote him in right now. LOLdavewiner Also English is the language of business world-wide. Americans who don't speak English are at a disadvantageanildash english-only advocates also purport to believe in free markets, yet they don't think english can compete without legislation mandating itandy754 "there's no doubt, Barack, that you are a passionate, and qualified speaker..." and yet she has to accuse him of plagarism to try to win?remarkk she's really good at taking her time and extending ad nauseumrhh If this guy makes it into office, you yanks are going to need a *whole new media* - people who care about policy, and not personalityThomasHan K, so which one of you two's health care plans is gonna fix me of my cough. Now!Leatrice tactical victory following a strategic blunder..... I know that's rightremarkk speaking of overmedicated, what's with that slightly insane smile of Hillary's? It's unnerving.davewiner For Hillary, it's got to be the moment she heard the name "Monica Lewinsky.davewiner Oy she got a softball, and she turned it into a boring monologue.Leatrice at least she didn't cry this time as she "found her vioce"

So its still a statically dead beat-- they are both still neck to neck in my opinion !!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

"If a man tonight falsely assures a woman of his undying love only to score with her, we rightly regard him as a sleazeball. But when politicians do essentially the same thing, save on a much larger scale, we call them "public servants" and treat them as our saviors. Very strange"

I would tell audiences that we were facing not a bubble but a froth - lots of small, local bubbles that never grew to a scale that could threaten the health of the overall economy." Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence. [ via FT ]

Heres the 12 warning indicators .

housing recession in US history , would wipe out between $4,000bn and $6,000bn in household wealth

further losses, beyond the $250bn-$300bn now estimated, for subprime mortgages.

"For instance, ideas at Google do not burst forth from the heads of geniuses and then find their way unimpeded to huge audiences of receptive users. Rather ideas emerge, are torn to shreds, reformulated, torn to shreds, prototyped, torn to shreds, launched to internal users, torn to shreds, rebuilt and relaunched, torn to shreds, refined some more, torn to shreds, put back together one last time, torn to shreds by SREs, tweaked again in a seemingly-endless frenzy of last minute work, and launched...whereupon they are torn to shreds by bloggers, journalists, and competitors."

When you consume content from like's Blog, and Munjal's blog you will certainly see the above happening in terms of product innovations. The are constantly building and rebuilding and refactoring. Team Like Rocks !! Btw.. they have the first color search that works !! (note : I have not tested, but think of it - a bot that distinguishes colors and tons of objects- exciting !!

I hope that they are on the track to fulfill and surpass revenue budgets for 2008. Mind you, what they are doing is mind blowing and surely, I won't be surprised if their exit strategy is via a acquisition. (maybe google ?) :)-

Monday, February 18, 2008

I early this week, I posted and linked to the Military briefing on a decesion for an Aegis SM-3 to try to shoot down USA 193. Note my words "try'

Today I get another tip that the actual motive is to prove , yes prove to China that US also has the same capabilities. Jeffery's insight is very candid and he's on the same level as John Pike with regards to Intel.

[Source : NYT ] Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control specialist at the New America Foundation, warned that China would cite the intercept to justify its antisatellite test last year.

"The politics are terrible," Mr. Lewis said. "It will be used by the Chinese to excuse their hit-to-kill test. And it really strengthens the perceived link between antisatellite systems and missile defenses. We will be using a missile defense system to shoot down a satellite."

What is important is that currently there is no model available that relay the risk of a 'mis shot', debris estimates or Hydrazine effects.Whatever the probability that the hydrazine will survive and vent, it is less than 1. That probability must then be discounted by the probability that the tank will land near enough a person (let alone an immobile one) to cause human harm.

In January 2007, the Chinese fired an SC-19 missile at a target satellite orbiting 475 miles overhead. About 1,600 pieces of debris, its remnants, were detected soon after that test.

When Golda Meir held the office of Prime Minister, she tried to encourage Henry Kissinger to make Israel a top priority. He sent her a letter: "I would like to inform you that I'm first an American citizen, second Secretary of State and third a Jew." She responded: "In Israel we read from right to left"

"a loose alliance of writers, hackers, capitalists and artists from the West Coast of the USA have succeeded in defining a heterogeneous orthodoxy for the coming information age: the Californian Ideology." [ via : Alumut ]

I kinda disagree that the Main stream IT innovations comes only from the Valley. I think that its widely distributed. There is MIT and off course some of the leading research centers in France too. This is high intensity read . Take time to consume, an mazing essay from the past -nearly 10 years ago. It's a vault copy !!

Seems like Gmail is having problems with time zones and NOT displaying the email in the time zone of the user. As you can see my Timestamp is approx 4.39 at screen capture and yet the top email shows at 5.03PM and this post time stamp will be around 5.05 :)-

1. Distributing cocreation2. Using consumers as innovators 3. Tapping into a world of talent4. Extracting more value from interactions5. Expanding the frontiers of automation6.Unbundling production from delivery7.Putting more science into management8.Making businesses from information

monkchips "skip this welcome screen". welcome screen? welcome screen? its an HP advert you dung beetles..."yellowpark "That's what they said about Dirty Den and he died twice"brycej Sometimes when you are having one of those days you stare at the bottle of Scotch on your desk.... and wish it was a bag of weed"gapingvoid @noahdavidsimon Whether you're a small taco stand or MSFT, the "If you want a cool brand, you gotta do cool shit" mantra still applies"ryancoleman I have it on good authority that this is not a very good time to go tobogganing. Especially with kids & karpets that can blow away easily"ryancoleman "Ronald Regan wasn't Ronald Regan before he became Ronald Regan" brilliant.vanessafox Is 89 tabs in one browser window Xs 4 browser windows too many?pkedrosky Overheard in hallway at demo: " I have met marc benioff and been introduced three times and fucker still doesn't remember me"davidcrow wondering if software parallels the auto industry: Oracle=GM; Google=Dodge; Microsoft=Ford; SAP=DalmerBenzgabrielmansour I find it somewhat ironic that the "Productivity" folder in my feedreader is the one that has the most unread items. hmmmissrogue There are 2 sides to this cultural revolution. 1 end represents the revolutionaries, the other has opportunists looking to profit from itwebword The Downfall of Web 2.0 -- Darth Beta -- You heard it here first! ;-)jowyang Time is like Money: 1) you never have enough 2) everyone wants a piece of itbrycej I just licked my Blackberry screen because it was dirty. Goodnight Folks I'm donebokardo Over 600 comments on the Dreamhost outage. Delivery of service is a *relationship*. Look how emotional people are! http://tinyurl.com/ytg7thdavewiner If Hillary wins, her husband should apologize for everything including the "I didn't have sex with that woman" line. And do it sincerely.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The decision to use an an Aegis SM-3 to try to shoot down USA 193 in the next 48 hrs.Defense Department, White House and NASA officials speak with reporters at the Pentagon, discussing reentry of a U.S. satellite. Thanks to JEff

1. The intercept will occur at 240 kilometers (130 nautical miles)2. The mass of the satellite is 2,300 kg (5,000 pounds)3. The mass of the interceptor is 20 kg. (From CBO)4. The closing velocity will be 9.8 km/s (22,000 mph), suggesting a virtually head-on collision.

Other pertinent observations. At 240 km, the satellite should be traveling 7.8 km/s; the SM-3 has a burnout velocity of 3 km/s.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

JasonCalacanis and Me , near practically seed the same thought on twitter. Literally Seconds away. Chatter is pouring in that Yahoo has rejected Microsoft offer of $44.6Billion stating that its "Yahoo's board has decided Microsoft's $31-per-share offer "massively undervalues" .

WSJ was the first to break the story. IMHO, Microsoft may have to make an offer as high as $37 to seal the deal

Friday, February 08, 2008

A new aggregator was launched by the creators of Trumers. Very neatly tucked under the acknowledgment link you will find a list of names there. I think we were the peeps that helped in culling the first All top list :)-

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Make sure that you explain that former friend of yours is in your mind. email /show her a pic of a former girl friend. Let you current know that you miss the times of fun !!

oh yeah , tis thrusday - girls nite out- make sure to hook up at the bar/ coffee cafe with her and her friends and in front of all friends show the pic and let them know you miss fogood times. nope you dont miss the girl -- YET !! :)-

Sunday, February 03, 2008

"Today, Google is the dominant search engine and advertising company on the Web. Google has amassed about 75 percent of paid search revenues worldwide and its share continues to grow. According to published reports, Google currently has more than 65 percent search query share in the U.S. and more than 85 percent in Europe. Microsoft and Yahoo! on the other hand have roughly 30 percent combined in the U.S. and approximately 10 percent combined in Europe."

I just had a look at livescribe, the newest and hotest gadget for the Personal computing.

Heres what my intial thoughts on their blog.

Is it possible to leverage the SDK towards UML spec's ? that is a drawing is done on the DPS paper and then the an applications converts the drawing into UML which is ready for Consumption.. along with direct Audio capture for each of the component's within the UML.

Methinks that will be killer app in terms of agile / next wave of SDLC's methods.. not to mention the host of apps that can be written for various vertical.. think of a doctor that scribble's on a patient's DPS (Dot Positioning systems) paper / chart and it goes routed to medical records to the pharmacy etc in a closed /secure loop infrastructure ? This means before you reach the pharmacy the medication is ready for pickup.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

steverubelsez "MacBook Air supply issues definitely China weather related. That's why everyone is so cagey. I think everyone expected to have them today."

This is a comment of strong fact. China has been having a lot of problems with the Snow etc. Logistics is certainly being impacted.

Now, what happens if there is a major national disastor in China ? Lets say the Bird Flu Virus, jumps to human beings or mutates and beings air borne. What will happen to the world ? Remember, there is no alternative logistic pipelines out China. Just think of it, no new tires for the car's - spares parts of machinery, food, and don't expect cheap toys during Xmas season. Net net about 40-60% of the US economy will be effected, another 30-40% of the EU's likewise the South America's.

The dependability of global trade on a specific geophysically located /country could spell another type of doomsday for the other countries.

Not sure if this hack works. but if you travel SWA, try it out and let me know .. [Vai DigtialFreeze ]

Southwest Airlines has a class of ticket called 'Business Select'. This ticket typically allows you to board the plane first, and because SWA doesn't have assigned seating means you have your pick of the seats on the plane. But there is quite an additional benefit.

You also get a free drink ticket. But they seem to have forgotten something in the implementation of this: Being your drink coupon isissued to you when you print your boarding pass. It's also printed whenever you *reprint* your boarding pass!

I get up this morning to to some breaking news and had to post immediately. THe chatter was picked up on Twitter.

Microsoft Corp. is offering $44.6 billion in cash and stock for search engine operator Yahoo Inc. in a move to boost its competitive edge in the online services market.

A Leading Industry Analyst , Monkchips states " its all about t economy is going to kick in. its all about the referrals baby. aQuantive has a plan".

Dennis of ZDNET " This is not a done deal. We have speculated that one of the enterprise giants might think ride in as a white knight. After all, Oracle or IBM could use a vendor aligned to cloud computing and would arguably would make better use of Yahoo!'s assets, applying strong fiscal management.

As for me , I think its just one big Ploy by MSFT. Its an opprotunity for them to pull the steak knife and take a jab at Yahoo and Google. Both these companies are not doing well, as their expected earnings have fallen. In addition there has been increases in the TAC (traffic Acquisition Costs).